"James," she said abruptly, "we've had a most horrid night, Ruhannah
and I. The child waited up for you, it seems--I thought she'd gone to
bed--and she came to my room about two in the morning--the little
goose--as though men didn't stay out all night!"
"I'm terribly sorry," he said contritely.
"You ought to be.... And Ruhannah was so disturbed that I put on
something and got out of bed. And after a while"--the Princess glanced
sardonically at Ilse Dumont--"I telephoned to various sources of
information and was informed concerning the rather lively episodes of
your nocturnal career with Sengoun. And when I learned that you and he
had been seen to enter the Café des Bulgars, I became sufficiently
alarmed to notify several people who might be interested in the
matter."
"One of those people," said Neeland, smiling, "was escorted to her
home by Captain Sengoun, I think."
The Princess glanced out of the window where the early morning sun
glimmered on the trees as the car flew swiftly through the Champs
Elysées.
"I heard that there were some men killed there last night," she said
without turning.
"Several, I believe," admitted Neeland.
"Were you there, then?"
"Yes," he replied, uncomfortably.
"Did you know anybody who was killed, James?"
"Yes, by sight."
She turned to him: "Who?"
"There was a man named Kestner; another named Weishelm. Three American
gamblers were killed also."
"And Karl Breslau?" inquired the Princess coolly.
There was a moment's silence.
"No. I think he got away across the roofs of the houses," replied
Neeland.
Ilse Dumont, bent over the cat in her lap, stared absently into its
green eyes where it lay playfully patting the rags that hung from her
torn bodice.
Perhaps she was thinking of the dead man where he lay in the crowded
café--the dead man who had confronted her with bloodshot eyes and
lifted pistol--whose voice, thick with rage, had denounced her--whose
stammering, untaught tongue stumbled over the foreign words with which
he meant to send her to her death--this dead man who once had been
her man--long ago--very, very long ago when there was no bitterness
in life, no pain, no treachery--when life was young in the Western
World, and Fate gaily beckoned her, wearing a smiling mask and crowned
with flowers.
"I hope," remarked the Princess Mistchenka, "that it is sufficiently
early in the morning for you to escape observation, James."